OOPS! and some fun stuff

I apologize for anyone who tried to leave me a comment yesterday and couldn't. For some reason, the comments were disabled for half of the day and it took me a little while to fix it. Thank you to everyone who left me some ideas, though! I'm so new at this, and 7 comments was enough to get me giddy about people seeing my blog :)



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Last night I went out to sing some beautiful karaoke with my sisters and some friends. I'm pretty much an old lady in a 26 year-olds body, so I don't go out much. I had a BLAST and hope everyone else did, too :) Here's some pictures of the night:



This is me and 2 of my sisters. I'm in the middle, and the birthday girl is on the left. My bangs are all messed up, but it was really sweaty and humid, so... sorry!





This is my sister and her hubby.






Me and my Darling Husband!

Thoughts on a Friday morning

I’m very weepy today. It’s kinda ridiculous. Let’s list the things that I have shed a few tears over, shall we?

1. I was 5 minutes late for work.

2. A friend told me about how her family dog was being put down.

3. I read the recap of the Roseanne series finale, and realized that a) I didn’t see it when it ran like I thought I did and b) it was sad and made me doubt everything that happened in the entire series.

4. I would rather be sitting at home with my husband and cuddly dog instead of sitting here at work.

5. It’s not even noon yet.


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Today is my little sister’s birthday! She’s 24 today and married with beautiful twin girls. For some reason, I’ve always made a big deal of her birthday. When she was away at college, I rented a car (mine was a POS and wouldn’t make the 3 hour drive down) and bought a cake and a bunch of gifts and spent the weekend with her, because it was her first birthday away from home. She is my best friend, and also the person I’ve fought with most in my life! We’ve shared clothes and boys (umm yeah… about that…) and fist fights and hurtful words. We’ve screamed and yelled and cried and slammed doors and then said “so are you coming with me to the mall, or what?” I was her matron of honor, and I’m the Godmother to one of her children. She is one of the most caring women I’ve ever met, an amazing mother, and the best sister! Happy Birthday, Connie! I love you!

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Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of Biblical Fiction, mostly about women of the bible. What I’ve found most interesting is that a lot of them have suffered from IF. For some reason, knowing that women have been suffering since the beginning of time makes me feel a little less lonely. Knowing that these women were important enough to be put into the bible also eases my guilt a bit. Although I know that the books I’m reading are fiction, based on limited knowledge of the actual women who existed, whoever wrote them seems to “get” it. These women want nothing more than to carry a child for their husbands. These women want to feel the aches and pains of pregnancy. They are not written as saints; they are written as women who, occasionally, feel bitter that they are barren. They feel ashamed that they cannot conceive. They pray for a child. They overanalyze every part of their lives to see why God would punish them so. They seek any means available to them for council and advice on tricks to try and herbs and foods to eat. They were not so different from the infertiles of today. Who’s to say that, if ART was available to them in their times, they wouldn’t have chosen the paths toward IUI or IVF?



So, readers (all 5 of you) I’m curious. Are there any books you’ve read or movies you’ve seen that make you feel just an inkling better about the whole IF thing? Is there anything you’ve encountered that makes you feel less alone? Leave me a comment and let me know.

Ashlee Simpson is Pregnant

I was listening to my favorite radio station this morning and they had a phone poll: what is the right age to have kids? OK, really? Is this something you can seriously put a number on? There are so many variables in this situation that I can’t even fathom putting a number on it. I know people who were in their 20s-30s that have had children and weren’t “old enough” to have them, and then there are people like my sister, who was 22 when she had my ADORABLE twin nieces and is a fantastic mother. (Her husband is another story, but I won’t into that here.) I once worked with a girl who was 18 or 19 and had an absolutely adorable daughter who was 2 or 3, and she was a fantastic mom, too. (This girl was SO FREAKING ADORABLE and looked like a Skipper doll and her daughter could not have been cuter. The daughter’s name was Alyssa, and she was beautiful and I just fell in love with her. I wonder whatever happened to them.)



On a completely unrelated note, we had a frost advisory last night, and the temperature outside of my place of employment this morning was 37 degrees. Umm can someone please tell Ohio that it’s MAY! Not only is it May, it’s the END of MAY! Frost?! This kind of thing makes me doubt global warming. I’m pretty sure it’s a real thing, though, and that Ohio just didn’t get the memo.



Also, for anyone who was worried, I FOUND MY ZOLOFT! It was in a shoe box (?) all safe and warm. That made me a much happier girl….. well, that and ripping my darling husband a few new ones for a lot of nothing in particular. Sorry Honey!

If you can't say something nice....

Say it anyway! These past few days, I've been in a really crappy mood. It might be because my mini-vacation is over and I'm back to the grindstone. It might be because we're doing some home renovating and decorating, and it caused me to spend WAY too much alone time with my wonderful husband. It could be because I lost my brand new bottle of Zoloft while moving things around for said renovating. Could it be a combo of it all? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. All I know is that I've been pretty weepy and crabby and I MISS MY ZOLOFT! Seriously, I've been looking for it for 3 days and haven't had any luck. You didn't steal it from me, did you?! I wouldn't blame you if you did...it's good stuff.





Yesterday I took my ADORABLE and PERFECT puppy to my husband's softball game, where we met a bunch of really ADORABLE and PERFECT kids that played and played with him and made him the HAPPIEST PUPPY EVER! It made me realize something.... my dog needs a boy. I've always said that if I ever have kids, I'd be TERRIFIED to have a boy. I've grown up with pretty much all girls all my life. I know nothing about boys. (Yes, I have a brother.... but really? He was born in between a bunch of girls, and so we never really thought of him as a boy. Sure, we played GI Joe with him.... but only if GI Joe was going to go on a date with one of our Barbies.) So, now that I've gotten over my fear of boys, can I PLEASE GET FREAKING PREGNANT ALREADLY?!?!?!?!?!!


This is the pic of my baby that made me fall in love with him. He's a lot bigger now, but wasn't he CUTE when he was a baby?

Unexplained infertility

This weekend I learned that an acquaintance of mine and her husband had been diagnosed as "infertile as a couple." Her RE has done every test imaginable, but can't seem to find a reason why they can't seem to conceive. I can't help but think that this is the worst possible type of infertility. If they don't know what's wrong, they can't fix it.
At least with PCOS (I was diagnosed in Nov 06 with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) there are steps that can be taken to get me pregnant (hopefully) in spite of my diagnosis. I've already had 2 rounds of Clomid with no results. There are other treatments, though, that will help me to ovulate.



This particular couple adopted a BEAUTIFUL little girl from overseas, but they haven't given up hope of someday having a biological child. Paul and I discussed adoption before we ever got married, and before we even had any clue that we were going to have problems getting pregnant. (My mother had 6 children, and my sister had twins as the result of an "unplanned" pregnancy. I come from fertiles.... what would make me think that I wouldn't be able to have children? ) We both decided that, if I wasn't able to get pregnant, we would definitely look into adoption. When we started having problems, we visited the subject again. We would do the clomid, and possibly some other fertility meds, but we weren't going to go as far as IUI or IVF. After 2 failed rounds of Clomid, adoption is looking like more and more of a possibility.



I have always felt "called" to be an adoptive mother. I know that there is a child out there somewhere who doesn't have a home and needs me to provide them with love and support. I know that being an adoptive mother is something I can do to better the world in some small way. Knowing all of this doesn't make the idea any less scary (for lack of a better word.) I do want to adopt, but I ALSO can't imagine not being able to experience the miracle of pregnancy. I've always thought about the cute little ways I would announce my pregnancy to my husband and family. I've fantasized about feeling my baby move for the first time and how I would tell it stories in-vitro. I've imagined how I would look in maternity clothes, and I've saved some really cute dresses that will hug a pregnant belly in all the right ways to make it stand out. The idea that I might not ever have that experience frightens me every day.

Let's see if I can keep this up

I've never been good at keeping a journal. I've always had big dreams of becoming the next Anne Frank (minus the scary Nazi stuff.) Since I was a little girl, I've hoped that someday someone would find my old journals and publish them, and I'd always be remembered with a slight air of mystery. I must have started 20+ journals with this thought in mind, but then I'd end up forgetting about them and packing them away, never to be seen again. Some of them I actually destroyed, embarrassed by the amount of times I had written "I Love _____". If one of my siblings had found that juicy piece of information, I'm sure my LIFE WOULD BE OVER! I could NEVER SHOW MY FACE AGAIN! I am older and wiser now... and I spend about 50% (ok 70%) of my day on the internet anyway, so I thought I'd give blogging a shot.



Maybe I should introduce myself. My name is Jill. I've been married to Paul since Feb of 2006. We have a dog named Charlie and a cat named Maggie. They're spoiled rotten. We don't have any children yet. We've been TTC since June 2007 with no luck so far. When we started trying, we decided that we wouldn't go in the direction of IUI or IVF, and that, if we couldn't become parents the "traditional" way, we'd adopt. The closer we get to that reality, the harder it is to fathom. More on that later. Paul and I bought his brother's house last year, and we're doing minor improvements here and there when we can afford it. My goal is to get it to look as different as possible from when his brother lived there, because sometimes I still feel like I'm living in someone else's house.



I have a very big family. We're not the Duggars or anything, but we're a decent bunch. I am the oldest of 6( Johnny, Connie, Emily, Ben (17) and Megan(16)), and I have a foster brother,Derek, who is 8 months younger than me. Connie is married to Andrew and they have a BEAUTIFUL set of twin girls, who are my life. Derek is married to Mandi, and they have a son and are expecting a little girl. You'll hear plenty about them in the future.



In this blog, I'm planning to talk a little bit about everything. You'll hear a little bit about my family, a little bit about TTC, and a little bit about the day to day life of being a "sorta" newlywed and all the stuff that comes along with it. Let's see if I can keep it up........